Vox Vocis

Poetry After
the Beep

On a whim, we asked people to read their favorite short poems into our answering machine for a project we called Verse By Voice. And they did, creating maybe the first-ever poetry meme. Make sure to listen to novelist Zadie Smith reading Frank O'Hara's Animals and Laura Demanski reading Gerard Manley Hopkins' Spring and Fall. Note: we didn't include what is surely not Christopher Walken reading EE Cummings, but that's worth a listen too. Jim talked about this project during his appearance on Public Radio's Hello Beautiful! and the photos are courtesy of Sam Javanrouh's Daily Dose of Imagery.

Eye: Darkrooms

Lights Out

"Since starting this project, I've become a late and reluctant convert to digital photography. I now spend less time in the darkroom and more time in front of the computer. With film I had a network of contacts across London and I felt embedded in the city. In comparison, digital feels disembodied." Richard Nicholson's beautiful survey of London's remaining professional darkrooms.

One thing and a couple sentences in the morning. That's the Daily Eye.

The Museum of Online Museums

Curating Since Before Curating Was Cool

The Winter Exhibitions are now open at The MoOM. Enjoy the collected collections and then please consider joining the Museum Board of Directors and receive some nice swag, including a DVD of our soon-to-be-released MoOMumentary, The Curators, and also that warm, smug feeling that comes with knowing you're much more generous than your low-rent friends.

The Museum of Online Museums has been featured on All Things Considered, in the NY Times and Time Magazine and was discussed at length on an episode of NPR's Hello Beautiful!

Pinsetter Alphabets To China

A More Than Fair Trade Agreement

A while back, we sent a bunch of our Pinsetter buttons to our pal Sam Potts to give to his Chinese English language students in Nanshan. We got a package back from Sam the other day and boy were we excited. Enclosed were huge sheets of beautiful, fragile paper that were signed by every student who received a pin. Sam wrote, "Hope this gives you a moment's delight in exchange for delighting the kids." That's an understatement Sam. Here are the other three sheets.

Much Bigger + Lots Beefier

Dimensions

Our 18-Month Field Notes Calendar, actual size, but cropped. The actual weight is harder to demonstrate. Try picking up your iPhone. It's a touch lighter than that. Sturdiness? Pop someone over the head with a plastic ruler. That ought to give you, or them, the idea. Available now in the Field Notes Shop.

Eye: Consellection

The Console’s the Thing

Patrick Molnar is a designer from Mainz, Germany who has collected and catalogued gaming systems from Europe, the US and Japan for the last ten years. The result is this beautiful Consollection, 145 systems carefully photographed and annotated. He's producing a book containing packaging art and screenshots too. Since around 1972 we've plugged a lot of stuff into our televisions and seeing them all at once shows how much things have changed and maybe more importantly how much they haven't.

2010 Tournament of Books

Making Note

Contestants and judges have been announced for The 6th Annual Morning News Tournament of Books today. Our Field Notes Brand is proud to be the presenting sponsor for this year's edition and we'll be doing a number of special offers and promotions as the tournament draws nearer. In the meantime, get reading!

Eye: Lisa Congdon

These Things
That I Have

When artist and illustrator Lisa Congdon started the year off announcing she would present a collection of objects each day, we all appreciated her erasers and admired her ambition. As the project has progressed (today is #34) each day's objects have helped to fill in an interesting non-verbal self portrait of her and her tastes, which are also on display in her home and studio.

A CP Film In Five Parts

Laboratory Conditions

RIP Ed Grothus who we met while we were in Los Alamos, New Mexico. We were looking for locations for one film project and we discovered a lot more about the town and its people than we bargained for. So we made a different film and called it Laboratory Conditions. It's being shown here in five pieces and is also available on DVD.

Regrets I Have a Few

What Was I Thinking?

Number six in Steve's series, Regrets: Band features Greg Hess facing the results of a monumental decision. Also, see David Pasquesi in Regrets: Hobbies and Justin Kaufmann in the sacred and profane Regrets: Boxes.

February Guest Josh Berta

Delivering the Goods

Josh Berta (jbe) is the clever brain behind Pr*tty Sh*tty, a blog dedicated to sticking inspiring design right next to awe-inspiringly bad design to help illustrate the remarkable distance between the two. In his professional life, Josh himself knows only work of the good variety, spending his days as a Senior Designer at Piscatello Design Centre in New York. Before that, he worked for Michael Bierut at Pentagram. He's an active member of AIGA and SEGD, and because he's won a few awards for his work over the years, it seems perfectly fair to refer to him as our Award-Winning Guest Editor for February.

A list of all the brilliant people who have helped us by guest editing Fresh Signals can be found here.

Other recent features are listed on Page Two.

Fresh Signals

"Advertising agency of the future sounds a bit like horse drawn carriage of the future." Amen. A thoughtful piece by Bud Caddell. jc-today

A day in the life of a cursor. Via @H&FJ. jc-today

"My stomach lurched a little when I realized that it was Salinger, for real, on the other end of the phone, speaking rather too loudly and seeming a bit confused by my voice..." Joanna Smith Rakoff on answering J. D. Salinger's' mail. jc-today

Ichiro Iwasaki's playful, sleek mobile phone design for the lotta. jc-today

Something Is Happening. dw-today

All the Super Bowl logos and way too much about the evolution of the Saints and Colts unis. jc-today

Cordarounds rock. jc-today

Restored Metropolis trailer. jc-today

Related to an earlier post. The newly restored Metropolis will be streamed from The Berlin Film Fest on Friday. Yay. Via Ebert. jc-today

Trailer for the documentary The People vs George Lucas. sd-today

Local note: Funny Ha Ha returns, tomorrow night at the The Hideout. Featuring Stop Smiling's Fred Sasaki, author James Kennedy, and much more. sd-today

Nice webcast... webcast... webcast... webcast. sd-today

The Videogame History Timeline dating all the way back to 1791. dw-today

By that, SD means this. Is it wrong to fall in love with a woman sipping juice in a robot suit from 80 years ago? jc-today

A batch of great behind the scenes photos of Fritz Lang productions, including the one from Metropolis we've grown so enamored with. Thanks Henry. sd-today

The Pen Spinning World Tournament. Via BB. dw-today

From photographer Ryan McGinley, The Highfliers. ms-today

Nice set of six porcelain espresso cups on a bamboo tray with inset saucers. dw-today

From an occasional series, Great Moments in Fresh Signals History. Thus Spake Zarathustra as played by a local school orchestra. Vans and the Places Where They Were. The Eisenhower Interstate System in the style of H.C. Beck's London Underground diagram. Lamentation of the Father: Laws Concerning Food and Drink. Panic's lost 1982 artwork, found. jc-today

A good, quick response to yesterday's collection of abysmal, absurdly-expensive Super Bowl spots: Have You Ever Wondered Why So Many Ads Are So Bad? sd-today

"It seems like a fulfilment of my childhood romantic notions of what I wanted to be when I grew up." Facts About Projection, Temujin Doran's ode to his job as a projectionist at London's The Screen on the Green. Via Doobybrain. sd-today

Justin Van Genderen's Star Wars travel posters. Via the Laughing Squid. jc-today

"You're six miles up, alone and falling without a parachute." So you know, how to survive a 35,000-foot fall. ms-today

This gigantic arrow is "a dynamically rotating electronic LED screen that allows passers-by to send in their favorite location and coordinates via text or email." jc-today

Sumedicina, a data fiction project, that tells a story through infographics. jc-today

American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life is closed at The Met but still lives online. A look back at the exhibition. jc-today

"All of the images featured on this site were captured using Apple's second-generation iPhone and Apple's iPhone 3Gs cameras. Images were processed using various iPhone photography applications only." Fab, from photographer Jeremy Edwards, iPhoneography. ms-today

Song of the moment, The Dixie Cups' Iko Iko. Via gmt+9 (-15). jc-today

The Whitney Museum of American Art has created a series of videos promoting the artists, curators, and events for the upcoming Whitney Biennial 2010, check them out here. ms-today

Stunning fireplace that will set you back a cool $9,700.00, the Zeta fireplace. ms-today

"The Haitian Poster project seeks limited edition sets of posters from artists, designers and design firms from around the world. The donated posters will be sold online to raise money for Doctors Without Borders." Read more here. ms-today

Loved this book, could not put it down. I had no idea this was even being made, trailer for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. ms-today

Knit Meat. ms-today

The 9 Hours, a brand new take on the capsule hotel concept, designed by Fumie Shibata of Design Studio S. jc-02.06

The Nicolas Cage Adventure Set comes with 9 vinyl stickers and a double-sided play backdrop, allowing you to recreate you favorite "I have to warn everybody! Math is coming!" moments. Via bblinks. sd-02.05

Page Two contains the previous 35 Fresh Signals, recent features, a key to the icons and the categorical archives.

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One Hundred Forty

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The Producers

Claire Zulkey
Howard Mann
Carlos Parrilla
Damien Newman
Drew Myler
Grant Hutchinson
Skipintro
R.BIRD
Karen Labenz
Andrew Figgins
Mark Powell
Mike Keen
Chet Yeary II
Greg Storey
Matt Lee
Jeremy Quinn
Grant Unrau
Debbie Millman
David Demaree
Charles Adler
Paul Joyce
S.J. Barlament
Stephen Vance
Sam Potts
John Tolva
Cameron Moll
J. Thomas Lowell
Hillman Curtis
Gridiron Software
Loyd Boldman
Heidi J Nyburg
William Dampier
Mario Van der Meulen
Simon Angling
Colin Scroggins
Inline Studio
Witold Riedel
Alan Hawkins
Marko Dugonjic
Chris Bernard
Matt Mullenweg
Alexander Muse
Dan Rubin
Thomas Mackechney
Dan Cederholm
Eric Mersmann
Ben Edwards
Brian Seethaler
Lightburn
Matt Haughey
Bill Keaggy
Pierre Mai
Kevin Hamm
Andre Torrez
Greg Hoy
Issa Breibish
Drew Stauffer
Abby Urban
Christopher Ebmeyer
Jeffrey Rutzky
Robert D. Whitson
Hunter Weeks
Christopher Cennon
Josh Williams

Your Name Here

the pitch

You can be an Executive Producer of our new short feature film, 72°. If you've always wanted to be a hotshot Hollywood player, or you just want to lend a hand to the project here's your chance.

A Thing We Made:
Field Notes

Field Notes Brand memo Books and more. "I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now." A CP/DDC joint.

Some Other Things We Made:

We hated the options available for custom packaging DVDs and CDs so we created a brand that gives creative professionals and hobbyists the tools to make great stuff. Here's a bit from the latest Jewelboxing weblog entry:

"At Jewelboxing HQ, case safety is #1 (employee safety is around #3 or #4, well below cake and beer safety). That's why we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of bubble wrap." Read the entire post.

Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.

The Deck Network. Interested in getting your product or service in front of millions of savvy, curious remarkably good-looking people? Give a shout.

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